


Incurable

by LilyCissa



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, F/M, M/M, Polyamory, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Spoiling comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 08:46:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3844549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyCissa/pseuds/LilyCissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers is sick. He knows that, and he hopes that the serum will cure him whole. Yet it didn't. Not for all of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incurable

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Incurable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3246452) by [LilyCissa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyCissa/pseuds/LilyCissa). 



> This short oneshot is based upon MCU mostly, and Civil War/Fallen Son comic books. If you haven't read them, I might spoil you really bad, so... As you wish !   
> Steggy and Stucky are only mentioned, just so you know.
> 
> I hope you'll like it !  
> And don't hesitate to ask me translations (French/English and English/French)

  
_They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety._  
Benjamin Franklin

1.

The news were too much for Steve Rogers to handle. To be followed, watched, his true identity and address published for everyone to see and know, all because he was Captain America? Where was the freedom he was supposed to incarnate? How the United States of America could betray him like this? Last time they did, he could have blamed Hydra and its terror policy, but now, whom could he point the finger at, if not his dear friend Tony Stark?  
Usually calm and collected, Steve acted recklessly, sending Maria Hill packing without hesitation. To hide, to get back into this closet he knew way too well. He grew up in the forties, he knew what it was to have to conceal himself from the rest of the world. He just didn’t think it’d all come back to this. Not now, in the 21st century. The irony tore a joyless smile on his face.  
He joined other runaways superheroes, becoming their leader without really realizing it. If the government wanted them to shut up, then the government would have a big surprise. Steve Rogers was freedom.   
He was resistance.

2.

“Hey, haven’t you heard?”  
Steve was silently waiting in line for a few minutes, worried he wouldn’t be accepted in the army. For the twelth time. He didn’t want to talk, but the guy just behind him seemed to disagree. Steve didn’t answer back, yet it didn’t discouraged the man.  
“They say inverted invaded the army! They’re taking them out, of course, but their number is just too big…”  
Inverted people? Why he was talking about it? Steve wasn’t tall or brawny, but it didn’t mean he was… That, or somebody told the guy.  
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked the stranger, obviously defensive.  
“Just to talk. Why? Are you feeling guilty?”  
His tone was getting aggressive, almost teasing. Steve looked away and locked himself in an embarrassed silence. Was it really showing? Did this man… Did he guessed it? He lowered his head, ashamed. And ashamed to feel ashamed.

3.

Once again, the army rejected him. It wasn’t a big surprise, but it still hurt. No matter how much refusals he got, Steve couldn’t get used to them. He locked himself into in little and pityful appartement, vexed. He sat down at his drawing table, looking at his unfinished comics page. This was the only place he really could be who he was, he could be himself. He sketched a character, began drawing his hair and eyes, then just completely stopped. It was bad, and it was going nowhere. His story didn’t make any sense, and nobody would want to read it. He sighed, and accepting the fact that he wasn’t drawing anything good today, he lay down onto his bed. Apart from writing, sleeping was the best way to escape a disastrous reality. And there was alcohol, too.  
It wasn’t in Steve’s habits to get drunk out of desperation to the point that he couldn’t move anymore, but Bucky had come to check on him today. And since the news weren’t so great, he decided to take him to the bars.  
“Hey. We’re going home.”  
“Nah.”  
“Steve…”  
He just couldn’t turn around to look into his best friend’s eyes. His best friend, huh? A designation so far away from the truth, from his truth. Bucky Barnes was so much more than that. He was his role model, his big brother, the one he admired and would like to resemble. It wasn’t only for Bucky that Steve wanted to join the army, but the shame to be incessantly rejected melted with the one to be a soldier’s friend. He wanted to be Bucky so much… To be able to fight for his country, for what it represented: freedom, facing the terrible totalitarism that was eating Europe away. If nobody acted, the next step was their own territory. Steve often wondered why they waited until 1941 and Pearl Harbor to stand up against the nazi dictatorship. They were part of the same world: what affected some would eventually affect the others. Hiding behind borders and thinking that no, it wasn’t our problem after all, that was the worst excuse ever. It gave Steve nausea.  
Like the third double-whisky he ordered in this bar, without forgetting the two or three previous establishments they went into before landing in this one. Bucky put a hand on Steve’s back, making him shiver with the touch. Stuck between the current geopolitics, his alcohol rate and the overwhelming self-loathing that took over him when pleasure and joy submerged him as Bucky touched him, Steve felt his stomach twisting. Running away from the counter and pushing aside his friend, he rushed into the bathrooms.  
“You really can’t handle alcohol…”  
Bucky was leaning on the wall, arms crossed on his chest, a sweet smile enlightening his face. He wasn’t making fun of Steve, not really. He never was mean to him, only a little more realistic and pragmatic than this idealistic young man.  
“I’m wondering why you drunk so much tonight, by the way.” he went on, his voice covering the disgusting noise Steve was making while he threw up.  
“I… Sickly. Ill-fitted. They said.” he articulated between two jolts.  
The soldier shrugged. “It’s not like it’s the first time you’re said those things. And you’re always coming back. I admire your tenacity, really, but sometimes the line between stubborness and stupidity is thin.”  
“Maybe.” Steve got out of the booth and threw himself under the cold water. “But I got to do it. Fight.”  
His best friend smiled again, his expression tinted with deep sadness. He tried not to pity Steve, but how not to? He was puny, asthmatic, with a bad eyesight… He wouldn’t stand half a minute on a battlefield. He wouldn’t even resist the bootcamp!  
Steve himself knew it too well, and he didn’t need to be reminded any of it. Yet, should he’d been big and strong, athletic and perfectly healthy, the army still would reject him. The stranger’s words were echoing in his head as he lifted his eyes toward Bucky.  
A ‘friend’? That was the cruelest joke in the universe.

4.

He finally got his chance. The army accepted him at last, with the project to get him into one of their special programs. He’d already been told what it was about, broadly speaking. They would make him a real warrior, someone with more capacities, immune to all sicknesses. A better human being, a super soldier.  
Steve would lie if he said that he didn’t fear all this. Technologies had really evolved this far? It seemed like possibilites were limitless when science was involved. He didn’t understand much, but he was sure that geniuses like Stark were capable of almost everything. He wasn’t really comfortable with the idea: where was the line between humans and God, now? The question was worth asking. What the humanity was capable of, exactly? Where would it stop? From this point of view, he was reassured to be the one chosen for this experiment. Such a power needed to not yield to pride or megalomania, two things that Steve fortunately lacked.  
The experiment was a success. Not quite ‘against all odds’, but when Steve lay down into this big metal sarcophagus, nothing was certain. He’d grown up several inches - feet even - and gained kilos of muscles within seconds. He didn’t need glasses or ventolin now. He’d become a man, a real man, one who’s tall, strong and able to protect himself and those he loves. He even got rid of this crippling sickness that prevented him from seeing beauty in feminity. Agent Carter seemed different in the new Steve Rogers’ eyes. Things had been set straight.

5.

He’d become Captain America, and he was in love. It wasn’t good news: he felt like Peggy still saw the frail and sickly Steve. He sometimes dreamt about his former life, forgot he had superhuman capacities and woke up in a body that he didn’t recognize as his. Agent Carter considering him more or less like the old Steve was both painful and reassuring. Deep down, he didn’t change at all.  
The other false good news was Bucky. To meet his best friend again only to lose him the next second, and realizing that, in the end, all his life had been a lie… Steve was feeling sick. If his body had been corrected to the point that it exceeded perfection, his mind wasn’t flawless. The serum cured everything, ok? So why was he still sick!? He loved Peggy, and not in a chaste manner, then why he still felt his heart breaking thinking about Bucky?  
He was gone now. It was too late. He didn’t have anything to say anymore, and soon, Captain America would die too, prisoner of the metal bird he stole from Hydra. Steve Rogers was about to sleep for a long, a very long time.

6.

It was too late for Peggy, and Bucky had disappeared. When Steve woke up on the riverbank, he was alone again. Alone with this sickness that wouldn’t go away, these feelings he was unable to handle.  
Steve cried.

7.

Civil war had come to an end, but it let a bitter taste in Steve Rogers’ mouth. Had he been wrong? On the content, absolutely not. On the form, well… A time must come when someone has to just stop.  
He was about to be judged for his crimes. Deprived of his status of representation of freedom, treated a mere criminal. Before going to his trial, he wrote a short letter. The foreboding was too strong. He just hopes that if something bad happened to him, people would just respect what he just hastily scribbled.  
They did. When Steve Rogers was shot down while coming out of the courthouse and died, Bucky Barnes became the new Captain America.   
Somehow, he had always been. He’d always been part of what Captain America was. Nothing was more natural for Steve to leave his suit to his best fr… To the man he had always loved.


End file.
